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Talking Postal Service And Privatization On Huffington Post Live

I was on Huffington Post Live today, talking about the story behind the recent news that the Postal Service is going to end Saturday deliver in August. I wrote about this recently in my post, The Postal Service Outrage.*

This post outlines what is really going on with the Postal Service, and how it is one more “manufactured crisis” that is part of a larger strategy to privatize government so that it serves a wealthy few instead of We, the People. The Postal Service is a service, not a business, yet it is required to “break even.” (The Pentagon doesn’t have to break even.) It is required to pre-fund 75 years of retiree health benefits — paying now for people who are not even born yet! It is hobbled, kept from adjusting rates and kept from offering different services that “compete” with private companies. And then when it runs short of money we are told there is a “crisis” and the agency is “obsolete” and should just be privatized. Privatization is the process of tking public property out of OUR hands, so that it will be run for the benefit of those with money, with the profits going to a few at the top.

Aside from the points in this post, I made one point that I think is very important: In a democracy government is us, and by definition government spending is We, the People doing things to make our lives better. Plutocracy is government only run for the benefit of a wealthy few. So when you hear people demanding “less government” and cuts in “government spending” you should think about what they are really pushing for.